Episode Summary
As we finish up 2014, it's time for a few predictions for the upcoming year. In this episode of The Digital Life we discuss the near future of drone delivery, the coming conflict in human / robot labor relations, cyborgs in society, genomic products for mass adoption, and the rise and fall mighty tech lifestyle brands like Apple. You don't want to miss our final episode of 2014 as we say "so long" to this year and explore five fascinating tech topics.
Here are a few quotes from this week's discussion.
Jon on human / robot labor relations:
My first prediction for 2015 is in the realm of robotics, which is very much an increasing technology presence in manufacturing — whether you’re talking about on the assembly line or robots that are more flexible in doing a whole variety of tasks. Amazon has robots that help with selecting things that are going to be packed in the warehouse. I think you’re going to start to see labor disputes. The first major labor dispute around robotic labor I think is going to happen in 2015. There have been hints of this already in some strikes, labor strikes in Asia where the general principles of a company are aligned with replacing humans with robot labor. There hasn’t been a direct, oh, this robot came in and took my job, all the workers are now going to be in solidarity with their other human workers, are now going to strike. I think you’re going to see that in 2015.
Dirk on the future of drone delivery:
The drones are going to be even worse, and there’s going to be less regulation, less oversight. By definition, they don’t have a local pilot. They’re going to be controlled oftentimes … Today, there’s just random citizens flying drones around. The more accepted drones become, the more pervasive they can become. There’s just going to be a lot of these little crashes. It’s not going to be epidemic. If it ever became epidemic, then it would be legislated out of existence, but it’s going to be more. There’s going to be more drone crashes injuring people than there are now single-engine plane crashes injuring people. I don’t know, for me, a lot of it, it feels unnecessary. I don’t know, it feels like something that is just being done for the benefit of the companies but not really thinking about the communities.
